Lake Garda – Bernese Defile – Etsch – Beaumont, Jean François Albanis de (Chambéry 1755 – 1812). The Pass of Chiusa and distant Mountains near Belluno and Osseniego. On the left the Bernese Defile situated between Lake Garda and Etsch, on the right the pass with the fortifications of Fort Chiusa. With figures by the pass and on the Etsch. Coloured aquatint by Cornelis Apostool (1762 Amsterdam 1844). 1792. Inscribed: A. Beaumont del. / C. Apostool sculp^t. / Published as the Act directs Jan^y 1. 1792. by T. & G. Egerton, Whitehall. for the Author, title as above. 31.5 x 44.7 cm.

Fine  Tyrolese  mountain  landscape  in  the  splendid  original  colouring

and in the wide-margined impression of the 1^st edition on buff Whatman paper. Isolated little foxspots. The colours of the part of the sky occasionally somewhat oxidized, but hardly disturbing.

Sir Albanis distinguishes himself as draughtsman, engraver in aquatint, and landscapist as well as architect. Hailing from the Piedmont he was naturalized in England. Egg says on him:

“ Publishes a large number of views from Italy and the Alps between 1787 and 1806 which he partly engraves himself in aquatint manner and partly lets be engraved by Cornelis Apostool. His engravings belong

to  the  earliest  representations  of  pure  mountain  landscapes  from  the  Tyrol  … ”

Apostool, painter, draughtsman and engraver, but, like Goethe, rather to be reckoned among the so-called amateur artists, received his education at the Amsterdam Drawing Academy (1784-1786) by the landscapist Hendrik Meijer, whom subsequently he accompanied to England, where he lived many years in London. His ca. 80

fine  landscape  aquatints  esteemed  by  the  connoisseurs ,

many of them after Netherlandish masters and the Alpine travel sketches of Sir Albanis de Beaumont, were published in several sets between 1790 and 1795. They are the result of that period artistically so extraordinarily fertilizing to him. In later years artistically he worked still only from diversion.

Simultaneously, and still later, too, he had carried out orders of the Netherlandish government on behalf of which he went also to New York and France.

1807 finally back in Amsterdam he became the first director of the Royal Amsterdam Museum (1808) and member of the Royal Institute for Sciences, Literature, and Fine Arts. 1816 Knight of the Order of the Netherlandish Lion.
Offer no. 15,246 / EUR  870. / export price EUR  826. (c. US$ 1062.) + shipping

“ I am curious as to the history of this (original Ridinger printing-)plate (just I bought) and the others you have offered. Did you purchase them from the Ridinger estate (indirectly, indeed) or a private collector? These are truly rare one of a kind pieces ”

(Mr. L. A. F., October 28, 2003)